Dutch garden designer Martin Veltkamp, known for creating tranquil landscapes composed around distinctly geometric forms, created a modern minimalist garden to surround a large villa in the Netherlands. The classic elements of the design could be translated, in a smaller scale, to nearly any garden:
Above: Geometric lines and planes—create a dramatic backdrop for a picnic table and plantings, including an allee of carefully pruned trees, a grass lawn, and boxwood topiaries in the distance. Right angles form a grid against which the plants can relax. Above: More topiaries punctuate a patio area adjacent to both house (R) and garage (L). Shape and texture create a language for this garden, which exhibits Veltkamp’s predilection toward using the “non-color” of green. Above: An undulating hedge of precisely pruned boxwood looks like an outcrop of rocks in a sea of crushed bluestone. Above: Veltkamp also designs furniture and accessories, including planters, for his gardens. Above: Veltkamp, who studied garden and landscape architecture at the Rijks Hogere School voor Tuin- en Landschapsinrichting in Boskoop, prefers the “non-color” of black as a backdrop to greenery. Above: Firewood is stacked against the house at the end of a gravel path. Above: Quarried bluestone steps and pea gravel create a unified palette punctuated by a black picnic table and planters (designed by Veltkamp). Above: The planters have been painted to match the trim on the house. Above: The view from the house: a swimming pool surrounded by bluestone pavers and layers of green texture. Above: Metal edging creates true right angles where grass, planting bed, paver, and gravel all meet. Above: Inside the fence, a second “fence,” created by a tightly pruned hedge of shrubbery.
N.B.: This is an update of a post originally published March 26, 2013.
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